


No Failure Shall Go Unrewarded

by Whatho



Category: Annually Retentive
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-31
Updated: 2010-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatho/pseuds/Whatho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You will not like me.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Failure Shall Go Unrewarded

'_You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Ladies, an announcement. I am… I am… Gentlemen. And that as well_.

Now, what I was doing there… I don't know if you noticed… I was channelling a very slightly Bowdlerised version of Johnny Depp in _The Libertine_. It's not much of a stretch. You're not convinced, I can see that, but, you know… what you're doing here is assessing my performance on the words alone, and also on the visuals. It's a very superficial assessment. You'll not mind my saying that. Disappointment, I think, is mostly what I'm feeling. Because you're going on my voice, aren't you, and my facial expressions, and my gestures…. you're prejudging me, essentially, is what you're doing. It's not terribly kind, is it. I suppose you're just not a terribly kind person. And that's _your_ problem. You know. I'd help if I could.'

And he sits back and curtly nods. He wraps his cuff around his fist and smears his breath into the glass.

*

First thing I did was pull the 'phone from my mouth and pretty much piss myself laughing. Well, it is funny. It was a medium-sized climbing wall in a proper accredited centre. It wasn't the north face of the Eiger. At his feet, or a few metres under them, there's a pool of people could free him in a heartbeat if any of them could be arsed, and that's mostly his fault anyway 'cause it's not hard to imagine the way he's been talking to them all the afternoon.

So it's gone nine in the evening now and he's dangling forty foot up on this climbing rope, hungry and cold, and no-one thinks getting him down might be anything approaching a good idea. He sounds properly sorry for himself. It's a treat and a half. It's just typical Rob, isn't it… can't get anything right. Now, like a total champion, he's gone and screwed up his big annual trauma – he's maybe as miserable as he'd been all season, and there's me laughing at him down the line 'cause it's about twice as funny as it is tragic.

And it's hellish tragic. Something in my chest kind of swelled. I lowered my voice. You can't do nothing but laugh three hours altogether.

In recompense, I licked him.

*

'It would've been a treat for him, certainly. Good experience for me. An artistic close to the series. And it's not as though we hadn't _earned_ a bit of fun. End of a long and I might say rather _gruelling_ season. I don't know anyone in the business works harder.

You really want to know why I didn't let Ben kiss me? Because _you_ hadn't earned it. The critical acclaim is _there_. Nancy Banks Smith _gets_ us. You don't. Still there's _you_, watching the show through your fingers like you're… like you're _ashamed_.

We don't reward your sort of behaviour. So. No sex for you.'

And he angles the wing mirror forward a touch so the strip-light doesn't shine quite so cruelly on the cold, pinky crown of his head.

*

Like his fleeing wasn't the most adorable thing I ever saw. I know what was in his head, 'cause it all goes straight to his eyes. I'm an inch away from winning, he's thinking, and Rob don't much know how to win. No way's that going unrewarded.

He was whispering to his wing mirror, pulling the driver's door to, free fingers working away in the remnants of his hair. I sidled up behind him, stooped level with his still-sweating bald spot and stopped the closing door with my hip. He never even turned, just kept tugging absentmindedly at the handle, so I caught his head between my palms and twisted him to look at me. His eyes flicked quickly all over my face and his lips were finishing off a round of silent speechifying. He mumbled the tail of it into my mouth.

'You earned it,' I said, feeding him paralysed into his seat, then I'm turning on my heel, straightening my smile, jogging smartly away to the far side of the car park.

Which broke his stupendous duck, all in all. And the best thing about it? He'll take that as a failure of sorts as well. He's failed properly to fail, for which he deserves to goad another set of climbing instructors to leaving him stranded forty foot up in a harness at close on midnight, and me laughing at him down the 'phone-line.

It makes your heart melt.

*

'But I don't _want_ you to like me,' he whines.


End file.
